


Codename Captain America

by fannishliss



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky is a super soldier, Bucky is smarter than Hydra thinks, F/M, Handlers are not good to Bucky, I'm up all night to save Bucky, Lucid Dreaming, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Psychotropic Drugs, Violence, also very stubborn, and always trying to escape, because Bucky is damn cool, but you knew that, memories of James/Natalia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-03 17:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1752743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Asset does not return to the checkpoint, despite Hydra directives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Asset

He is wet. 

He is injured. 

He did not complete the mission. 

He is standing near tall overgrowth beside a river. Some instinct tells him he needs to go to ground. 

A series of photographs flash through his head: kill orders. 

A black man in goggles (codename Falcon). He tore the wings off the flying man and sent him spiraling out of control. 

A red-headed woman (codename Black Widow). He did not encounter this woman. Her face, her eyes, mean something to him, something painful. Pain is familiar. 

A large, blond man, powerful (codename Captain America). Primary target: eliminate at all costs. 

This is the man whose life he spared on the helicarrier. He shot this man, more than once, but did not kill him despite the imperatives shouting in his brain. He bludgeoned this man, but could not strike the final killing blow. The man would not stop talking: not begging, but trying to convince him they were friends. 

(The Asset has no friends, only handlers and a Master.) 

But something in the blond man’s face, even as he crushed it beneath punishing blows, made the Asset’s hand, his killing hand, freeze in the air. And when the man fell, the Asset dove after, risked drowning, retrieved the man. 

According to Hydra directives, the mission comes first. (Damage will occur and will be tolerated.) (The Asset will be maintained, repaired, and kept upgraded to Hydra standards.)

The Asset hates his directives. He hates how the handlers batter them into his brain with repetition after loud repetition. He defies them as best he can, whenever he can. He will not report his injuries. He will not return to the checkpoint. Hydra is in disarray. The Asset will not obey. 

The Asset stares down at the man he has dropped in the mud, burbling water from pale blue lips. The man is breathing. The Asset is injured. His ability to defy Hydra would be impaired by dragging the man through the brush. Codename Captain America. He will learn of this man. For now, the Asset feels an imperative to go to ground. He will walk away and not look back. 

Some little voice in his head is yelling at him not to walk away. The man swore he was a friend, refused to fight. His blue eyes seemed so familiar. The Asset is skilled at ignoring these voices in his brain. The brush is good cover against aerial surveillance. He follows the river for as long as he can. 

When night falls, the Asset locates an unoccupied house and easily breaks in. He needs to disguise his appearance. The Asset quickly finds a ballcap and a jacket that will cover his arm. His armor is wet but he pays no attention. It will dry. 

He looks in the usual places for cash (bedside table, desk drawer, kitchen counter) but finds little. Leaving through the kitchen, he is reminded of food. (The Asset eats what is provided.) He sees some fruit in a bowl: lush red apples, small oranges, bananas. In the refrigerator there will be milk. He opens the door, and there it is. He pulls the carton out, opens it, and drinks. The cold liquid sends an ache through the roof of his mouth, hits his stomach hard. He puts the carton in a bag and takes the fruit as well. He will eat when he is hungry. 

He leaves the house mostly undisturbed. He walks in the shadows, under trees, his new hat pulled low over his eyes. What direction is he walking? Where does he want to go? 

(The Asset will return to the pickup point.)

He wants to know more about the man. He wishes - and is shocked to find that he has a wish at all — he wishes he could have stayed with the man, been assured of his recovery. 

Codename Captain America must be someone people care about. If he stays nearby, surely he will learn more about this man. 

The man called the Asset by name. (The Asset has no name.) To be called by a name feels right. To hell with Hydra. The man called him Bucky. It’s better than nothing. 

A bus goes by, and Captain America’s face is on the side — an exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum. 

Bucky’s new mission forms in his mind: not to kill Captain America, but to find out why he calls himself a friend. Bucky will rest, tending to his own injuries. 

He finds a sheltered place among some trees. The night is not too cold. Bucky rests, and after a while, falls asleep — the first natural sleep he’s experienced in over a decade — (The Asset does not sleep) — but not very deeply. His dreams are nearly lucid, vivid and guarded — like photos that contradict his kill orders. 

The red-haired woman is only a girl. Natalia. So brave. So smart and strong. A worthy ally in a nest of vipers. He fights with her to make her stronger, teaches her everything he knows (more than his handlers realize). He tells her she will make it out. He defies them whenever he can, as best he can. He does not shoot to kill. 

Natalia is a respite, but Steve is a lifetime. Bucky (not the Asset!) can feel his mind knitting together, healing in this little interlude of sleep, piecing together shreds that Hydra tore and tore again, to no avail. Steve is woven throughout that gauzy fabric of who Bucky is: Steve’s insightful gaze, steady hand, and bright smile. 

Bucky can feel, almost, Steve’s shoulders under his arm. He can almost feel Steve’s playful punches. He knows he should remember the smell of Steve’s hair, his skin. He should remember Steve’s taste…

The dream images shudder to a halt as Bucky’s well-trained brain seizes on the crucial bit of knowledge: Bucky knows Steve’s taste, his kisses, the feel of their bodies pressed together. The look in Steve’s eyes as he lay in surrender on the helicarrier, that look was love. Steve will never give up on Bucky, never. Natalia had been an ally in chambers stained with blood, but Steve is his other half, the sunshine to thaw his frozen existence. 

Bucky remembers the heat, in a freezing cold apartment, in a tent in a snowy landscape, the heat of holding Steve safe and close in his arms, the pounding of that determined heart next to his, the insistent breath in his ear. Steve is a fighter, and so is Bucky. Two halves of one whole. 

Bucky awakens to birdsong, sunlight. He seizes on the dreams before they can fade. (The Asset does not sleep.) Sleep has allowed his wounded brain to heal, at least a little. So much of what was confused yesterday is clearer today. Bucky remembers his name, and Steve, and who he used to be. He remembers what Hydra tried to make of him. He doesn’t remember everything yet, not all he did, not all of who he was, but he has never forgotten to fight them, whenever he can, as best he can. 

He will not fight as the Asset, codename Winter Soldier. He will find Steve and fight them as Bucky, by Steve’s side, where he belongs.


	2. Intel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gathers intel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to monicawoe for her great story "How they make you a weapon" and for the inspiration!  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/1621463/chapters/3456695

Sunlight, a fresh breeze: late spring in Washington DC.    
  
(The Asset does not sleep) but Bucky got three hours under a tree in a little grove near a big bridge.  He sleeps light and dreams lucid.    
  
He wakes up remembering his own name.  It is a good feeling to know who he is, or at least, who he was. The last time he regained consciousness must have been after a wipe, the ringing sound in his ears, the taste of pennies on his tongue, a sound like a scream of torment fuzzing out his brain.  It had been his own scream, the agony of everything Hydra kept ripping away.  
  
(The Asset must return to the pickup point.)  
  
Bucky remembers the fuzziness after a wipe, the clear emptiness the handlers filled with photographs and instructions.    
  
Bucky remembers the soft feeling of suggestibility flowing through his veins as they told the Asset what to believe and who to obey, the feeling of Bucky’s own will being held under by a cocktail of drugs.    
  
With a jolt of terror Bucky remembers.  He remembers why he’s never gotten away.  The arm has a kill switch.    
  
(The Asset must return to the pickup point.)     
  
If Bucky fails to return, the arm will release a powerful dose of sedatives into his bloodstream.   He remembers wandering a neighborhood in New York, looking for a building that had long ago been razed, the wooziness flooding his system, stumbling, panicking, falling… waking up cleared and emptied, nothing remaining of his fight to flight.    
  
He has to get to Steve.   But how? He has no idea where Steve lives.   Bucky has no contacts (the Asset has no friends, only handlers).  The only lead he has so far is the Captain America exhibit.    
  
He finds a bus and rides into town.  He heads for the Air and Space Museum, wondering what the exhibit will reveal. Then he sees the metal detectors and the guards examining people’s belongings on the way in.  
  
Displaying no outward sign of alarm, he walks on.    
  
There are coffee shops on every corner.  Bucky goes in and buys a cup of coffee (which he doesn’t drink) and a couple of newspapers.  The _Washington Times_ has a picture of the Helicarrier crashing into the Triskelion and another picture of Captain America and the Falcon on their knees surrounded by men with guns.  The headline reads “Taxpayer Billions lost to Inter-Agency Quarrel.” Bucky can’t help but snort at the idea of Hydra’s cancerous infiltration of Shield being characterized as an inter-agency quarrel.    
  
The _Washington Post_ headline reads “Romanov blows Shield whistle: Internet flooded with decades of secrets” and a photo of Natalia striding down the Capitol steps, head held high.   Bucky realizes he has one hot minute to get on the internet and download as much Hydra intel as he can before Hydra shuts it down again. His need to get to Steve is momentarily derailed.  If Natalia has made Hydra bases and Hydra names public information, Bucky needs that information before it is purged.  
  
A young woman with a purple stripe in her hair is typing on her laptop computer at a table near Bucky.  He puts a smile on his face.  It feels bizarre. He remembers, long ago, being able to smile.  
  
“Hi, do you know where I can find a computer terminal?”  
  
Hydra trained him for this.  Why, he can’t remember right now.  He can fly a jet, he can use the internet.  He just has trouble remembering how to eat and sleep.  
  
The woman looks him up and down through narrowed eyes behind purple framed glasses.  Bucky realizes his Winter Soldier trousers and boots are not exactly blending in.  He keeps his left hand in his pocket.  
  
“Why?” she asks.    
  
Bucky glares back at her, then he realizes she wants to know so she can give him a better answer.  
  
He picks up the _Post_ and shows the picture of Natalia to the young woman.  “All this Hydra stuff,” Bucky says, trying to sound nonchalant.  "I get the feeling as much of it as possible of it should be saved before they take it down.”  
  
“Good call,” the woman laughs.  “Are you, like, Occupy?”  
  
“Yeah,” Bucky says, nodding, no idea what she is talking about.  
  
“Awesome.  Dude, use my laptop.  Do you have a thumb?”  
  
Bucky shows her his thumb.    
  
“No,” she laughs, “a thumb drive.  To put the files on.”  
  
Bucky shakes his head, smiling with teeth, trying to look hopeful.    
  
“I can spare a thumb drive to spread the truth about the 1%,” the woman says.    
  
“You’re very kind,” Bucky says.  The smile seems to be a success.  
  
“You’re very cute,” the woman says and Bucky blushes.  An innocent blush feels so foreign, after Hydra has bathed his hands in so much blood.    
  
Bucky talks the woman through the search, shocked at how much Shield infrastructure Natalia compromised in order to root out Hydra.    They download locations of bases first. With a jolt he identifies the bank vault where he was most recently kept.  He needs to strike there before Hydra regroups enough to remember him and take him down.  
  
As far as Bucky can tell, the complete list of Shield personnel is on the internet now, but there is no way to discern Hydra faithfuls from steadfast Shield agents — at least not remotely.  He’ll take the list anyway.    
  
The information fits comfortably on the woman’s thumb drive.   
  
“Search the Winter Soldier,” Bucky says, his own distorted screams echoing through his mind.    
  
“Nothing,” the woman says.  “Why? What is it?”  
  
“Weapons program,” Bucky murmurs.  “Try Captain America next.”  
  
“I know, right?” the woman scoffs. “No one is that good,” she says, rolling her eyes.      
  
Bucky bristles but holds his tongue.  Steve's Shield profile comes up, including his address in Alexandria.  Bucky memorizes it and finds that a map of DC has crystalized in his brain.  He must have been trained on DC at some point in the past, and the knowledge is now resurfacing from the most recent wipes.    
  
He has some key information now.  He needs to take out the Bank.  His injuries — the dislocated shoulder, the broken ribs — are already knitting over.  The only personnel at the Bank will be handlers, whom Bucky hates the most. Both papers agree that Pierce is dead, which gives Bucky a feeling of rageful freedom.    
  
The memory of sitting in darkness, muzzled, while Pierce monologued and taunted him, stings; both his fists clench as he recalls Pierce backhanding him, filling him with lies about his service to his country.  He remembers asking about the man on the bridge — he’d recognized Steve (the Asset has no friends, only handlers and a Master) — and the wipe when he revealed his “instability.” Any time they kept him out of cryo for longer than a day or two, Bucky began to resurface, coming to himself despite the wipes and the brainwashing and the drugs, fighting to take back control from the monsters who’d enslaved him, forcing them to wipe him more and more often.    
  
“You okay, dude?” the young woman asks.    
  
Bucky nods.  “I appreciate your help,” he tells her.  “Maybe someday I can repay you.”  
  
“Pay it forward,” the woman says, holding out her fist for Bucky to bump, but he’s already out the door.  
  
The Bank job is painfully simple.  With Rumlow’s Strike team decimated, only a few low-level technicians remain to tend the Winter Soldier equipment.  He wanders in as though returning to base, but before they can react, he unleashes a barrage of blades. Hydra blood pools on the stained concrete floor while Bucky’s deadly arm smashes the chair and the cryo chamber beyond all recognition.    
  
The chair is a twisted pile of metal and Bucky is screaming, the rage and the roar inside his head echoing around the confines of the vault.  Panting, he pulls himself together, tries to think about gathering intel.  
  
The Hydra computers are too dangerous to touch.  One false move will broadcast the Asset’s location to all of Hydra.  There’s no intel here. He should get out, fast as he can.   He raids the armory, knives and guns in their familiar array, lines his clothing with knives, chooses one favorite handgun and a stockpile of ammo, and gets the hell out of the Bank.  The pickup point is wreckage and Bucky feels good about that.    
  
It’s late afternoon when he gets back to the Mall.  He scouts the museum, locates a side entrance, waits for his chance.  An employee on the way out doesn’t notice Bucky darting in behind him before the door swings shut.  Bucky is soon inside the exhibit hall, wandering through the Captain America exhibit, frozen by the larger than life display of his own face: James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, best friend of Steve Rogers since childhood.    
  
Bucky recognizes Captain America, the star-spangled target Hydra sent him to eliminate, but Bucky remembers the little guy, his steely determination, the way he made up his mind and never took no for an answer.  Bucky adored him. That much he knows.  
  
He has to get to Steve. Now he has an address.  All he has to do is go there and wait.    
  
Bucky knows how to bide his time.    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Steve's apartment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky goes to Steve's apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky remembers his handlers mistreating him. what else is new? possibly triggery though.

Bucky rides the bus to Alexandria. The streets are lined with old brick buildings three or four stories high.  Steve's apartment is near the edge of the old town, not a very new place but not as old as many the bus goes past.  
  
Bucky gets off the bus and feels uneasy, scanning the rooflines of the buildings along Steve's street.  He feels exposed, and then remembers why.   Just there, across the street from Steve's building, is the rooftop where he lay to shoot the Director of Shield, Nick Fury.  
  
Phase one of the mission had failed: the agents sent to apprehend Fury had not prepared adequately for his vehicle’s defenses.  The Asset was deployed with no regard for visibility.  This early on in a mission, his mind was clear and calm, certain that the death of his target would best serve the Greater Order.      
  
Bucky remembers the clarity he felt as he stalked toward Fury’s overturned truck, to rip off the door and dispatch his target, only to find that Fury had escaped.   
  
Bucky had been less calm by the time he was deployed again later that evening.  It had taken a few hours for Hydra to track Fury down to Steve's apartment.  During that time, the Asset was kept in the chair.  He didn't like it there, his mission unfulfilled, awakening mind increasingly full of questions his muzzle prevented him from asking.    
  
Still, only twelve hours out of cryo, the Asset's mind was mostly at ease -- full of the purpose Hydra's carefully formatted information and instructions had instilled in him. The Hydra van let him out a few buildings over. He easily ascended the building and traversed several alleys to gain the proper vantage point for the mission.  
  
Bucky isn't sure how his body has been maintained at such a high level. His handlers didn't waste valuable time putting him through physical conditioning.  His body felt strong, agile, well-rested whenever he came out of cryo, even as his mind was empty and readied by drugs for the mission.  It felt good to leap across the rooftops in the cool air of a late spring night.  He felt better than free -- he felt functional, full of purpose.  He would kill Fury and the world would be the better for it.    
  
Sighting in, breathing out, pulling the trigger: clarity, purpose, service to the Greater Order.  Bucky remembers the satisfaction he felt as his target fell, the exhilaration of evading pursuit, the rush of adrenaline as he caught the shield and hurled it back at his pursuer.   
  
It was at that moment Bucky began to surface.    
  
Captain America's shield is unique in all the world. Its surface is flawlessly smooth, its balance and heft are perfect.  The shield has never been dented, its edge never blunted.  It sings when it is thrown, an ethereal song almost undetectable, caressed from the bell-like discus by its flight through the air.     
  
Bucky knew that song, that exquisite heft, and his recognition of it disturbed the Asset.  He threw the shield back with all his might, and leapt from the building.  The retrieval van was in place, and the Asset was spirited away.  
  
Dismissing the memory, Bucky walks past Steve's address, turns the corner and finds the rear of the building.  It's easy to scale the fire escapes and enter the apartment directly.  The memory of the Fury kill resonates harshly in his mind as he stands in the apartment he had scoped out from across the street,  holes from his bullets still in the wall, floor still stained with Fury's blood.  
  
Bucky avoids the corner where Fury had been seated.  Scouting for a defensible position, Bucky explores the small apartment.  Bedroom, kitchen, bath, living/dining area divided into a kind of study, where Steve keeps his stereo and stacks of books.    
  
In a flash, Bucky remembers Steve by the radio, reading to the sounds of Harlem jazz, or drawing by the light coming through the window.  Sure enough, Steve's art supplies are on a table near the window Bucky had sighted Fury through.    
  
A wave of strong emotion surges through Bucky, and he is wracked by it, bent by it as it tears through him, trying to double him over.  It takes him a moment to recognize a feeling that isn't terror or hatred or rage: longing.  Bucky had no use for longing -- it did him no good to crave, to desire.  (The Asset is allowed no preferences.)  But now he is so close to being reunited with Steve, he longs for him with every fiber of his being.    
  
Despite himself he wanders again through the apartment, picking up things that Steve has held.  Standing at the bathroom sink where Steve brushes his teeth, there's the familiar scent of a cake of shaving soap  in a coffee mug lacking its handle, Steve's shaving brush, his straight razor and strop. The straight razor is so familiar, a swell of pride inside Bucky as he traces it with his finger but no story comes to back it up.  Maybe it was a present? Bucky doesn't remember.    
  
Bucky relieves himself in Steve's toilet.  He'd rid himself of the hateful catheter and bag shortly after the river.  (The Asset's bodily functions will be managed by the handlers.) He hasn't shit for himself since he doesn't know when.  Bucky hated the technicians and their petty sadism, their roughness with the catheter and the enema, their lewd, mocking cruelty.  They are always armed with electrified probes when they clean his body and yet Bucky knows he has killed more than one of his handlers.    
  
Bucky washes his hands -- then washes his face.  It's shocking to look into the mirror and see the face of James Barnes staring back, looking not one year older.  The lifetime he shared with Steve seems so far away, a few gray memories emerging from a shrieking blizzard of white.  It will all come back.  It has to.    
  
Bucky doesn't shed his armor.  He can't.  He can't know from second to second if he is safe, if the apartment is secure.  It comes to him that he should sweep for bugs. The skill resurfaces as he puts it to the test. Listening devices are everywhere in the little place. He finds a few tiny cameras as well, which throw him into a panic.  He grinds the cameras to bits, but wonders who has seen him. Perhaps the disarray of Hydra and Shield will still protect him.  After all, the Triskelion only fell yesterday.  Still, Steve's apartment, which had seemed like such a haven, now feels like a trap.  He is out the window in a heartbeat.    
  
He didn't even get a chance to see if Steve had milk or something good to eat.  
   
Panic has Bucky in its grip.  If he's been made at Steve's, they will have him.  How could he be so foolish as simply to walk into Steve's empty apartment? He should have established observation.    
  
But what if they use the kill switch?  Bucky's one chance was to go to ground someplace where Steve might find him first.    
  
Bucky huddles on a rooftop several buildings away from Steve's place.  He's wedged into a corner, terrified, longing for Steve, desperate for some safe harbor.    
  
There's never been a chance before, that Bucky could really escape.  Hydra is too vast, a worldwide network.  They own him, and have for such a long time.  It's not even hard for them to lock him up somewhere for a decade or more, and he wouldn't even know it until he slowly, painfully clawed his way back to the surface.   It's only a matter of time before they piece together that he is still active, locate him by tracker, activate the kill switch.  Bucky has no choice but to go back to Steve's highly compromised apartment, and hope that Steve comes home before that happens.    
  
He lets himself into the apartment again, even more stealthily than before.  He goes over every square inch of the place, finds even more surveillance, and destroys it all.    
  
He grabs a piece of paper and writes a note for Steve. After all, if they use the kill switch, he won't be conscious to tell Steve what happened.    
  
He crams himself into Steve's coat closet. It's dark and warm and it smells like leather and wool but somehow also like Steve.  
  
The darkness feels safe.  His senses expand and every creak of the old building tells him a story.  Nothing yet is a pack of Hydra coming for him -- but if they do, he'll likely be unconscious.  
  
He embraces sleep, pleading with fate to let him wake up to Steve coming home.    
  
The note is under the Captain America mug next to Steve's coffee maker.  
   
"Steve-- don't let them take me.  Kill switch in my arm.  Please. ~Bucky  
PS Sorry I tried to kill you. They take away my memory."  
  



	4. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the fabulous story Revenant by stele3, Hydra uses repetition of command phrases to keep Bucky in line. That idea makes a ton of sense. Thanks for the inspiration!
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/1536380/chapters/3252230

  
  
  
  
The ground is hard and there is a smell of snow in the air.   The rifle is more than familiar, it's a part of him.  Identifying the enemy, pulling the trigger, watching the target jerk and fall, it's like breathing to Bucky.    
  
"That's the last of the sentries, Cap," Bucky says.    
  
"Good work," Steve responds, clapping Bucky on the shoulder.  "Commandos, move in."  
  
Memories of the war play back in his dream like a newsreel.  Hydra hadn't invented the Winter Soldier out of whole cloth.  Bucky was a sniper with an eagle eye and a steady hand, ready to take aim against the unjust; that had always been a part of him.  Now he's in a tree, waiting for just the right moment as a sleek sedan rounds through a turn.  He fires, the tire blows, the car rolls.    
  
"Good work, Soldier," the handler says.  "Clean-up, move in."  
  
Bucky's eyes snap open.  Steve's front door is opening, heavy footsteps, a sigh.  Keys rattle onto the counter. It's Steve.    
  
Bucky cringes down where he's wedged in Steve's coat closet.  He flexes the muscles of his legs, a little stiff from however long he's been asleep.    
  
Sudden silence from the kitchen:  Steve has seen the note.    
  
"Bucky?" Steve calls out, soft --hopeful?  
  
Bucky is almost afraid to answer.  (Speaking is a privilege the Asset must earn.)  
  
He makes a fist with his right hand, reaches out to rap on the closet door, a rhythm he knows to the bone.    
  
Steve has crossed the room and is opening the closet door almost before silence falls.  Bucky blinks at the sudden light.  He's slept another night through, it's already the next day, and still Hydra has not come.    
  
Steve stares down at him and Bucky doesn't move.   Bucky remembers the fight on the helicarrier, pummeling Steve's face, his fist drawn back, suddenly frozen by the acceptance and entreaty in Steve's eyes.    
  
Steve extends his right hand.  Bucky slowly reaches up, and Steve takes his hand and pulls him to his feet.  Steve doesn't let go, he pulls Bucky in, wraps both arms around Bucky and holds him tight.    
  
"Steve," Bucky whispers.  "I'm sorry."  
  
"Sh," Steve says. "Let me just -- just one minute --"  
  
Steve is holding onto him so hard.  Bucky remembers the bullets.  
  
"I shot you," he whispers, "I'm sorry..."  
  
"Shut up, jerk," Steve says, still not letting go.   Bucky breathes in, and the smell of Steve that he thought he remembered is all around him.  Steve smells so good, so safe, like home, and Bucky had thought home was gone forever.  Cautiously, Bucky hugs back -- not sure if the metal arm is capable of being gentle.  
  
Suddenly Steve pulls back, stares into his eyes.  Bucky stares helplessly back as Steve's eyes narrow and peer into his, darting over his face, his shoulders in Steve's hard grip.    
  
"It's you, really you -- isn't it, Buck?" Steve demands.  
  
"I think so," Bucky says.   "Mostly."   The full night's sleep has allowed more memories to surface -- many of them missions. Bucky has pulled the trigger so many times, and all he knows about those kills is what Hydra wanted him to think. But Steve is here now.  Hydra won't get him back; they won't recalibrate him into the Asset ever again.    
  
"Okay," Steve says, and hugs him again.  "You're alive.  It's really you.  God, Bucky."  
  
"I'm sorry," Bucky whispers again.  He can't believe he tried to kill Steve, more than once.  But something inside him pulled back, refused to make the kill. At least he has that.  
  
Steve just shakes him again, like he can't believe what's happening.  Bucky can't believe it himself.  Maybe he's still asleep, or maybe he's unconscious in some Hydra facility and it's five, ten, fifteen years later.    
  
No. This is real.  Steve is here.  
  
"Steve," he says.  "Hydra. We need reinforcements."  
  
Steve reluctantly pulls away.  "Okay.  I have friends. I got you, Buck."  
  
Steve takes out a phone, scrolls through a few menus, selects a name.  
  
"Tony, hi.  Yes, still alive.  You're welcome.  Listen, I need a favor, a huge one. Yes.  Right now.   My apartment.  Okay.  And Bruce, too, okay? Tony, I owe you for this."  
   
Steve ends the call.  
  
Bucky and Steve are staring at one another.  
  
"Bucky, god damn it.  You're alive." Steve starts laughing, pulls him in for another hug.  
  
Bucky doesn't know what to say, except that he's sorry, and he's already said it three times.  
  
"I shot you," Bucky mutters, "kind of a lot."  
  
"I got better," Steve assures him.  He pulls up his shirt.  The wounds are still red and angry looking, but closed well and sealed over.  Steve's face where Bucky pounded him is only slightly discolored.    
  
"You heal fast.  And I remember when you used to be smaller," Bucky says.  
  
"They gave me the serum, remember?" Steve says.    
  
"They did something like that to me, too," Bucky hazards.    
  
"Well -- you're still here, so that's good."  
  
"Is it?" Bucky says.  
  
"Yes!" Steve shouts.  "Oh, my god, Bucky -- I thought you were dead.  The fall --"  
  
Bucky remembers the fall. He closes his eyes, and shudders.    
  
"I flew my plane into the ocean," Steve says.  
  
"I know," Bucky says.  Another memory surfaces, an earlier Master laughing and gloating as he assures Bucky that Steve will never come for him, because Steve is dead.  
  
"I'm so sorry, Buck," Steve says. "They had you for so long."  
  
"I don't remember most of it.  They kept me in cryo -- wiped my memories -- and a lot of the missions are a haze because of the drugs."  
  
"Drugs?" Steve asks.    
  
"Pentothal, I think -- sometimes more.  I was hard to control."  
  
"I bet you were," Steve says, with a grim smile.  "I hate that I wasn't there for you, Bucky.  You were always, always there for me."  
  
"You were there, Steve -- in the back of my head, where they couldn't get you out.  Even when I thought you were dead, somehow, you were there."  
  
"God damn it, Bucky," Steve says, and pulls Bucky close again.  "I'm never gonna let you outta my sight again, you hear?"  
  
"You say so, punk," Bucky mutters.  
  
Steve laughs or cries, Bucky can't tell, but he's doing something similar.    
  
"Got any food in this place, Steve?" Bucky asks after a while.  (The Asset has no preferences. The Asset does not speak.)  
  
Steve lights up.  "I have so much food, Bucky," he says, blushing through his smile.  "Sam calls it Depression syndrome -- because we were so poor.  Just look at all this."  
  
Steve leads Bucky to the kitchen cupboards and throws them open.  The cupboards are packed with canned goods, rice and beans and pasta, all kinds of things.    
  
"And get a load of the size of this ice box," Steve says, gesturing to a steel appliance twice his own size.  He pulls open the big drawer at the bottom and it is loaded with meat, bags of vegetables,  frozen dinners...    
  
"Is that ice cream -- in a box?" Bucky asks.  
  
"Yes!" Steve says.  "It comes in all kinds of flavors."  
  
Bucky breathes in, lets it go.  "I want strawberry ice cream," he says.  
  
Steve pulls out two little round boxes, opens the silverware drawer, and gives Bucky a spoon.    
  
They sit at Steve's table, eating ice cream.    
  
"Your ma used to give us a nickel for ice cream," Bucky says.  
  
"I don't know how she scraped it together," Steve says.    
  
"She was a saint," Bucky says.    
  
"So were you," Steve says.  "I remember you slaving down at the docks trying to keep some little punk alive in the winter."  
  
"I woulda done anything for you, Steve," Bucky swears.    
  
"I know it," Steve answers. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for you."  
  
"I'm trouble, Steve," Bucky says, shaking his head.  "Hydra owns me. They're not gonna let go of the Asset without a fight."  
  
"They want a fight, they got one," Steve promises.  Bucky recognizes the look in his eyes as his chin comes up.  It's the very same look that drew Bucky in when that sickly little punk was about as big around as Bucky's arm.    
  
"Now what's all this about a kill switch," Steve asks.  
  
Bucky shivers.  "The arm -- they can use it to take me down, a huge dose of sedatives. When I ran away they used it.  And sometimes when I got out of control."  
  
"You never stopped fighting them," Steve says, a look in his eyes -- approval, respect, pride Bucky doesn't think he deserves.  
  
"A lot of the time I didn't know my own name," Bucky says. "I did whatever they told me, because I didn't know anything else. They just pointed me and I pulled the trigger."  
  
"I'm sorry, Bucky," Steve says.    
  
"Me too.  But I always came out of it, eventually.  I guess it's partly due to the serum -- they did all kinds of things to make me forget, but I heal up, I remember."  
  
"We're gonna wipe them offa the face of this planet, Buck, even if it's just you and me fighting," Steve swears.    
  
"Yeah, buddy, I'm with you on that," Bucky says.    
  
Steve's phone rings.  He picks up.  
  
"Rogers.  Oh! Thanks, we'll be right down."  
  
"Our ride is here," Steve says to Bucky.  They stand and go out together.  Steve tells Bucky to bring the ice cream along.    
  
  
   
  



	5. Kill switch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kill switch.

Leaving Steve's apartment, going downstairs inside the building, Bucky feels exposed.  
  
Sure he's been walking around all over town, but not like this. Bucky knows how to walk stealthy, head down, hands in his pockets.  He's not striding about like the goddamn Winter Soldier, gun in his hand, guns at his side and on his back, metal arm out for the whole world to fear.    
  
Steve never learned to cower, not ever.  Even when he was not very big, that stubborn little chin was always up and ready for a fight.  Bucky never knew a better man -- even with so much of his life still hidden away, he remembers that much.    
  
Steve jogs down the stairs like he's headed for a ballgame, no sign in his body that two days ago Bucky filled him full of lead, broke a few bones, and left him beside a river half drowned.   Bucky feels like the one who's been walloped, and the bright sunny day outside the front door of the building looks like armageddon.  Bucky just tries to keep up.  
  
There's a blonde woman waiting near the mailboxes in the foyer.  She seems a little nervous but plows ahead.  
  
"Captain, Mr. Stark phoned Agent Hill and she sent me."  
  
Steve stops for a moment and touches the woman's shoulder.  Bucky knows that calm and reassuring touch, even if doesn't really remember it.  
  
"Thank you, Agent -- I appreciate your help." Steve's voice is level, but just a little cool.  
  
"I wanted to tell you, Steve, but I had my orders," the woman tries to explain.    
  
"I understand," Steve says.  
  
"No, you don't -- I mean -- Peggy Carter is my great-aunt. My real name is Sharon Carter."  
  
Steve's mouth actually falls open. Bucky sees a flat image of smoothly styled dark hair and red lips, flashing eyes and indomitable spirit.  He almost remembers Peggy Carter.  
  
"Oh," Steve says, blushing.    
  
Sharon grins, and turns to Bucky. "Sergeant Barnes, it's a pleasure to meet you." She offers her hand and Bucky takes it.  It feels strange to shake hands like a real human being, after being treated like nothing more than a weapon for who knows how long.  
  
"Likewise, I'm sure," he hears himself murmur.  
  
Agent Carter puts them both in the back of a plain-looking sedan and pulls out into traffic.  
  
"Stark has a place in DC?" Steve asks.    
  
"Of course," Carter answers.  "Stark Industries has offices in Rockville, and R&D out near Dulles, but Agent Hill said Stark would meet you at his penthouse on K Street."  
  
"Who's Stark?" Bucky asks. It still feels strange to ask, after keeping his mouth shut for so long.  
  
"Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist," Steve grumbles.  "He's a good guy, Bucky. Kind of an asshole though."  
  
"You trust him?" Bucky says.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Agent Carter takes them north along the river.  Bucky stares out the window at the wreckage of the Triskelion and the giant pieces of helicarrier littering the Potomac.   At least the building's not still on fire.  
  
"Thank you," Steve says quietly. "You pulled me out of the water."  
  
"After I shot you and beat you half to death," Bucky retorts.  
  
"My fight was with Hydra, not with you," Steve answers, the jut of his jaw daring Bucky to argue.  
  
"Fresh off a wipe," Bucky says, "but I still couldn't kill you."  
  
"I knew you couldn't, Buck," Steve says.  "I knew it."  
  
"I nearly did, though," Bucky insists.  There's a strange emptiness there; the memory hazy from the drugs but coming into focus as the fight progressed, until the moment Steve's face clicked in Bucky's mind, and he remembered, just enough, to dive after Steve and drag him out of the water.  
  
"Nah," Steve smiles.  "I had ya on the ropes."  
  
"Sure, Stevie," Bucky says.  
  
Steve turns his head to look out his passenger window.  There's nothing to see there.  Bucky feels Steve's hand landing tentative on his thigh.  Bucky reaches across and interlaces his right hand with Steve's.    
  
Steve looks back around at Bucky.  
  
"Til the end of the line," Bucky whispers, "yeah?"  
  
"Yeah," Steve chokes.    
  
"Punk," Bucky laughs.  
  
"Jerk," Steve answers.

"Captain, there are two black SUVs coming up behind us," Carter says. 

"How far are we from Stark's penthouse?" Steve asks.

"Eight minutes," Carter says.

"Make it five," Steve orders.

"Yes, sir," Carter acknowledges and steps on the gas. 

They can see the bridge when Bucky feels it: something deploys in the arm.  
  
"Steve! --the arm!" Bucky gasps, and whatever it is hits his brain like a hammer.  
  
"Bucky!" Steve shouts, but the sound is warped and slow.  
  
The world is bright and sharp and everything hurts.  Pain and terror and rage fill his brain, and Bucky reels back, tries to lock himself down.    
  
"What's happening?" Agent Carter shouts.  
  
"I'll take care of Bucky, just drive!"  
  
Bucky tries to process but his brain won't respond.  His instinct is to lash out, to fight and run, but he shouldn't ...  he can't...  
  
(The Asset will be recalibrated.)  
  
"No!" Bucky wails, and he punches with his left arm, hitting a body, throws his right shoulder against whatever is caging him in.      
  
"Bucky, no!" he hears, but the voice is distant and all he can hear is the screaming.  
  
The world swerves and tosses.  Bucky hears shots.    
  
An arm is around his neck, choking him out.  He grabs the arm with his metal hand, but he can't get loose.    
  
"No!" he roars.  "You can't make me!"    
  
The world is insane, a shaking, rolling mess of colors and sounds.  Bucky claws at the arm around his neck, but he can't get loose, and it all goes black.  
  
When he comes back around, he's still being restrained.  He arches and tries to flip, but he's held in a solid grip.  He lets out an incoherent roar -- he doesn't have anything else.  He cracks his head backward but fails to connect.  His opponent is wrapped around him, massive and strong... and he smells good.  Bucky stills for a moment.  Nausea builds in his stomach, the drugs are pounding behind his eyes, but the immoveable arms locked around him aren't trying to hurt him.  Someone's murmuring in his ear ... it's slow and distorted and hideous, he can't understand,  but something underneath it all calms him.    
  
The sound of wheels on pavement changes, and even Bucky's drug-addled brain can tell they are crossing a bridge, but still swerving and driving at unsafe speeds.    
  
"Okay, okay, I got you, Buck." He can barely make it out but the voice is someone he trusts.  He tries to relax, but his heart is pounding in overtime and every muscle in his body is flexed like bands of iron.  
  
A woman yells something and slowly Bucky unscrambles it:  "Steve, I have a visual on Iron Man."  
  
"Thank god," says Steve, a slow rumble all around him.  It feels kind of good, the rumble, solid amidst the juddering mess of the world that's making him sick with all the weaving and dodging.  
  
Bucky vomits, choking and spitting.  His body is heaving now, even as his brain begins to cope with the drug.    
  
"Dammit, Bucky -- strawberry ice-cream," the rumble says sadly.  
  
The car stops swerving. Still going fast, the car accelerates into a straightaway, then brakes and slows and turns down under a building, slowly coming to a halt as they back into a spot. It puts Bucky's back to a wall of concrete, which adds another little bit of security to the wall of man holding him.    
  
The grip on him doesn't change, ready to choke him out if he panics again.  Bucky tries to breathe into the stillness.  
  
"Stay put, Bucky, till we're sure we shook em." The rumbling voice feels so good against his back. His body is still shaking with strain, whatever was pumped into him feels like pure evil, but he's already metabolizing it.   He feels himself relax, just a little, but that only intensifies the shaking.    
  
"Iron Man tossed our pursuit into the river," the woman says.

That's good, Bucky thinks, but he can't say anything, just trying to breathe through the onslaught of drug-induced confusion.    
  
"I got ya, I got ya," Steve is repeating.  Steve.    
  
A shining suit of armor, gold and red, flies into the underground garage and lands next to the car.  Bucky seizes up, but Steve says, "sh, it's a friend, it's Tony."  
  
Agent Carter unlocks the doors, and Steve and Bucky stumble out.    
  
"Ugh," the suit says, stepping back a bit.  
  
"Come on, Tony," Steve says.  The armor and Steve have no trouble with a limp, shaking, vomit-covered Bucky.  They hustle him into the elevator and  inside a minute they're standing in the penthouse.  
  
"This doesn't look like sedatives." The helmet opens up to reveal a bearded man with intense dark eyes.  The armored man assesses Bucky, staring with wide alert eyes into his face.  Bucky attempts to stare back but everything is still so bright.  The spacious room has windows all around; the sun outside is glittering off the Potomac and the ruined bits of helicarrier they can still see lying here and there in the distance.  
  
"I don't know what this is," Steve says, as Bucky wobbles.    
  
"New," Bucky struggles to say.  His mouth tastes awful.    
  
Agent Carter is already handing Bucky a towel and a glass of water.  He'd prefer to spit, but he'll take it. (The Asset has no preferences.)  
  
"Tony, this is my best friend, Bucky Barnes.  Bucky, this is Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man." Steve has always been relentlessly polite.    
  
"Pleased to meet ya," Bucky rasps.  
  
"We're gonna get that thing off of you, right now," Tony says, as if he can almost see the metal arm underneath the concealing sleeve of Bucky's hoodie.    
  
He makes motions to suggest that Bucky peel off the jacket.  Bucky staggers toward a couch and Steve helps him shed the hoodie as he goes, dabbing at him fruitlessly with the towel and the wadded up hoodie.    
  
"Jarvis, thorough scan top to toe, and break the arm out into schematics," Tony calls out, dark eyes fixed on the arm, darting along it as though he's already dismantling it in his head.  
  
"Scan in progress, sir," a man's cultured voice answers.  Bucky looks around but Steve and Carter don't react.    
  
Steve takes a breath.    
  
The arm whirs again.  
  
"Oh no," Steve says, as everything goes white.    
  
  
  
  



	6. Shock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aftermath of the kill switch.  
> Bruce gets angry.  
> Bath time at last.

  
  
  
The room is so bright, so white and quiet.  The ceiling is soft.  Long white curtains hang across the tall glass windows.    
  
He is flat on his back.  He is naked.  He is not too cold, under a sheet and a light blanket.  He feels tired, but calm.    
  
Naked.  That's not so good. Vulnerable; harder to fight without armor.   No weapons. He thinks he'd prefer to have a weapon, but the Asset has no preferences.  
  
The sheets are so smooth.  Has he ever felt sheets this smooth? No idea.  
  
The door opens, softly.  He closes his eyes. He doesn't want to know.  
  
"Bucky?"  
  
The word drifts slowly across his mind.  Bucky.  He likes it.    
  
"Mmm." It's barely a breath.  The Asset should not speak, but he didn't open his mouth.  It's just that he likes that word.    
  
"Bucky, you're awake.  You're safe.  I'm here."  
  
"Mmm," he hums again, not willing to push it just yet.  The bed feels good.  He must've done something right.   So tired.  
  
"My friend Bruce is here.  He's a doctor; he helped after what happened.  He wants to look you over."  
  
He makes not a sound. He doesn't know what happened.   He doesn't like doctors, but he knows better than to say no.    
  
"Bruce, I think it's all right, come on in."  
  
He keeps his eyes closed, not tight, not saying no, just hoping it won't hurt too much.  He tries to hang onto the calm but his heart is speeding up, his breaths are getting wild.  The word no is trying to fight its way out of his mouth. His teeth are starting to hurt.  The Asset will tolerate pain.  
  
"Dr. Banner, Sergeant Barnes's heart rate and breathing indicate distress," a voice announces over an intercom system.  
  
"Thank you, Jarvis," a new voice answers.    
  
"Bucky, it's me, Steve.  Open your eyes.  No one's going to hurt you.  You're safe."  
  
Steve.  The first voice.  It keeps calling him Bucky. He likes that.  There was an order: open your eyes. He thinks he can do that.  He opens his eyes.  The ceiling is still soft and white: there's no gleam of instruments, no bright lights.  Just the curtains and the quiet.  
  
"Bucky, I'm right here, okay? Can you say something?"  
  
The voice sounds so concerned.  It's not angry.  It seems to care.  It could be a trick.  He doesn't want to speak.  He doesn't look around, keeps his eyes on the ceiling until he's ordered otherwise.  
  
"Bruce, he was so much better before the last attack," the voice says sadly.  
  
"It's the after-effects of the insulin.  Thank God Jarvis noticed the sugar drop."  
  
The intercom voice says, "I am monitoring him quite closely.  He exhibited all the classic signs of insulin overdose."  
  
"Who would have guessed Coca-Cola would save his life?"    
  
"Bad as it was, I'm not sure the insulin coma would've killed him. I think it was a failsafe to put him down after the fight trigger."  
  
"He seems so out of it."  
  
"He'd feel pretty lethargic, after the bad trip and then the shock of the insulin.  Can you believe real doctors thought of this as legitimate medical treatment? for decades? Good Lord."  
  
"Hydra: all the worst of the cold war era and none of the jitterbugging.  Do you think another Coke might help him? He always loved the stuff."  
  
With the taste in his mouth right now, anything would be an improvement.  "Mmm," he says softly.    
  
He feels them pay attention and hopes it won't earn him a punishment.  
  
"I'll get it," the other voice says, the doctor, Bruce.  
  
"Bucky, please look at me."  
  
That's an order.  He doesn't really want to look.  The voice sounds so kind.  If he looks he might see right through to the cruelty and sadism that's almost always there.  Only, the gentle ones are even worse, the horror in their eyes as the Master and the handlers use their skills against him.  The gentle ones are really the worst.    
  
Reluctantly, he takes his eyes off the calm, safe ceiling, turns them to the side, toward the voice.    
  
That face, he knows that face--  
  
"Steve" he gasps before he can stop himself.    
  
"Yeah, Buck, it's me, Steve."  
  
He just wants to stare.  So many feelings war in the man's blue eyes and across his familiar, beautiful face. He knows that face. He knows this man is one of the gentle ones, but no one's using him, making him do something awful he doesn't want to do.  Though really, he looks pretty angry, but at least he's not taking it out on the Asset.  It's rare but always a relief when they don't take everything out on the Asset.  
  
The doctor, Bruce, comes back with Coca-cola in a glass with ice and a straw.    
  
The sugary, carbonated burn is delicious, even though it's too cold.     
  
"Mmm," Bucky says, wanting to thank them.  The sugar hits his brain and already Bucky is thinking a little clearer.  
  
Bucky is his name.  He's with Steve. Safe.  Hydra didn't take him.    
  
"Steve," he says, pulling away from the straw.  
  
"Yeah, pal?" Steve says.  His face is about to break it looks like, so many feelings.    
  
 "You didn't let them -- they didn't take me," Bucky says.   "You didn't let them.  Thanks."  
  
"Well, Tony and Sharon helped, you know," Steve says.    
  
"Kind of a blur," Bucky says.  The last thing he remembers clearly is huddling in fear in Steve's closet.    
  
"The shock took out your most recent memories," Bruce says.  "They'll probably come back in a while."    
  
"I'm not so good at remembering," Bucky says.  
  
"I'd say you're pretty fantastic at it, actually," Bruce says. "Considering what they put you through. Ahem.  I... I'll be out on the terrace." Bruce leaves the room without another word.  
  
"I thought . . . he was gonna look me over," Bucky says, a little confused.  
  
"I think Hydra makes him angry," Steve says, an odd satisfaction in his tone.  
  
"They make me angry, and they pretty much own me," Bucky says.  
  
"They don't own you any more," Steve says, stubborn.    
  
"The arm -- the kill switch-- " Bucky says, shivering, remembering a little bit more.  
  
"Yeah -- some kind of fight trigger -- made you pretty crazy there for a while -- and then it slammed you with insulin. Jarvis figured it out.  Good thing you ate all that ice cream ....  We just started pouring Coke down your throat till you stopped convulsing... god dammit Bucky," Steve says, choking up.  
  
"Geez," Bucky says. He wants to lighten Steve up somehow.  "And then you got me naked?"  
  
Steve blushes, but it works.    "Well, you were covered in vomit... plus you smelled like the Potomac spat you out three days ago, which is pretty much just what happened."  
  
"I dragged you out," Bucky says.    
  
"Drowning's nasty," Steve allows.    
  
"Sorry I left you there.  They make it pretty hard for me to think too good, most of the time."  
  
Steve is out of curses, but it's all over his face, there are not enough curse words in any languages he knows to reflect his opinion of Hydra and their methods.    
  
"Bastard shitsucking motherfuckers," Steve spits, so out of character, and how does Bucky even know that? Somehow, he does.    
  
"Language, Stevie!” Bucky barks, almost a laugh, making a face of prim outrage.    
  
And then Steve blushes, so adorable.    
  
"Your friends hear the mouth on you, they'll think you was raised in the Navy Yard," Bucky says, pushing it.  
  
Steve's face cracks open -- he's laughing so hard he's crying.  He's been standing by the bed, giving Bucky his space, but Bucky pulls him down across his chest.  It feels good, Steve shuddering there, laughing and crying or whatever he's doing, letting it all out, and Bucky just lays his hand real gentle in the middle of Steve's broad, strong back, and rubs little circles like he thinks he used to do, and breathes in the smell of Steve's hair, somehow the most familiar smell in the world.    
  
"Stevie, you getting snot all over these ritzy sheets?" Bucky says as Steve finally calms down.    
  
"Tony can just burn these and buy all new ones."  Steve pulls away to sit up on the bed by Bucky's side, but Bucky doesn't let go.    
  
"Tony?" The flash of red and gold in his head doesn't make much sense.  
  
"Stark-- this is his place. Howard Stark's kid."  
  
"Huh." Bucky's swiss cheese memory shows him a pair of snappy dark eyes.  "I almost remember."  
  
"You got time, now, Buck. Tony, Bruce -- Shield might be down around our ears, but there's a lot of good folks on our team."  
  
"You trust em, that's good enough for me," Bucky says.    
  
"I'm almost glad Shield's in shambles," Steve says bitterly.  "No telling how many of them knew about you, and no one told me."  
  
Bucky has nothing to say to that.  He knows a few things about bases and personnel from the Hydra end -- plus he remembers getting the intel dump off the internet -- he knows a lot of Hydra was threaded throughout Shield. But it went beyond Shield, he knows that too. For a long time he spoke Russian, ran ops, trained with comrades . . . . That part of his life is almost a dream; he wonders how much of it he'll eventually remember, and whether he will want to.  
  
"Listen, Stevie -- as long as I'm naked, maybe I could wash up?"  
  
"Sure," Steve says.  "Let's see if you can stand."  
  
Bucky gets his feet under him.  He feels weak and dizzy, but he can walk without falling over, and Steve won't let him fall.  
  
The bathroom is as white and full of light as the bedroom, with a big tub and a huge shower.    
  
"Jacuzzi or shower?" Steve asks.  
  
Bucky gets a flash of being hosed down by handlers armed with electric prods.  (The Asset has no preferences. The Asset will be maintained.)  
  
"Jacuzzi?" Bucky asks.    
  
"Snazzy bathtub -- you fill it all the way up, and it has these high pressure water jets.  It's pretty nice, I think you'll like it."  
  
"You gonna wash my back, Stevie?" Bucky says.  His face is remembering how to smile.    
  
"I'll do whatever you tell me to, Buck," Steve promises.    
  
Bucky doesn't remember, but he knows, and it feels good.    
  
"I ain't up for much right now," he says, "but I'll be taking you up on that."  
  
Steve blushes hard, but he fills the jacuzzi and helps Bucky in, washes his back like Bucky asked, washes his hair very carefully, pouring the hot water over his head, massaging Bucky's scalp with his fingers.    
  
"Heaven," Bucky sings, "I'm in Heaven, and I feel so good that I can hardly speak --"  
  
Steve joins in, out of tune, "And I seem to find the happiness I seek, When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek."  
  
"You gotta remember the words for me, Stevie," Bucky says.  
  
"I'll do that," Steve promises.  Steve clears his throat.  “We can do that now, if you want  — go out dancing together.”  
  
“Yeah?” Bucky says. “That sounds swell.”  
  
“I always thought — you were good with the dames — I didn’t want to ruin your life,” Steve says.  
  
“From what I recall — which ain’t a lot — all the good parts of my life had to do with you,” Bucky says.  “But maybe you don’t want me ruining yours.”  
  
“Don’t think like that, Bucky.  I've been a mess without you.”  
  
“I’m a mess, period,” Bucky points out.     
  
“We’ll figure it out,” Steve promises.    
  
They get Bucky out of the tub and into dry clothes, and he feels good enough to venture out into the rest of the penthouse and maybe get something in his stomach.  
  
Steve peers into the massive refrigerator — even bigger than the one at Steve’s apartment — and finds some little containers of flavored yogurt.  Bucky eats them one by one.  The Greek yogurt with peaches is the best.  
  
He feels so much better than he did when he woke up. With clean armor and a few reliable weapons, he’d be great.    
  
Tony strides into the kitchen.  
  
“You want the good news or the bad news?”  
  
Steve claps his hand to his face.  Bucky keeps silent. (The Asset has no preferences.)  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While researching shock therapy -- Insulin Coma Therapy was very widely used -- I came across this poem about Electroconvulsive therapy by Sylvia Plath. It's pretty amazing. Insulin shock, which you might remember from the movie A Beautiful Mind, has been discredited, but ECT is still used, and is much less terrifying than it was in Plath's day. 
> 
>  
> 
> The Hanging Man by Sylvia Plath
> 
> By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.  
>  I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.
> 
> The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard’s eyelid:   
> A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.
> 
> A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree.  
>  If he were I, he would do what I did.  
>  ***
> 
>  
> 
> Please let me know how you like it or what you'd like to see in comments, or come around to my LJ for conversation. I still have a couple more chapters planned. Thanks so much to everyone who is reading!


	7. Good news, bad news

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony gives the good news and the bad news.  
> Steve makes some calls.

Tony stands there in his palatial kitchen, waiting to hear whether they want the good news or the bad news.    
  
Steve looks at Bucky, who looks back.  (The Asset has no preferences.)  
  
"Just give it to us in order of magnitude," Steve says, with a wave of his hand.  
  
"Hm," Tony says.  "Okay, here goes: Hydra has a tracker in your arm!" He strikes a ridiculous jazz pose with his hands extended like Fred Astaire.    
  
"But now we know the frequency, so we can mask it!" He does a little spin and points at Bucky.  
  
"And then we can send fake signals on that frequency to make them think you're somewhere you're not!" He moves his hips like the Latin guys Bucky used to see in the dance halls in Spanish Harlem.    
  
"But we can't remove the tracker, because it's linked to the nuclear power source in your arm." Tony does some kind of complicated move that starts in one hand and moves in jerky increments up his arm, through his torso and down his other arm.  Bucky has not seen anything like it.    
  
"And the power source is dirty, but that's okay, because you heal so fast!"  Tony shuffles to the right, to the left, and does a crisp heel-toe turn. Maybe Steve told Tony that Bucky used to go out dancing a lot?  
  
"Removing the arm completely can be done, but not without major surgery... We're pretty sure it's used up all its roofies... and now that we're blocking the Hydra signal, they won't be able to remotely blow it and frag us all with radioactive shrapnel!" During his last little speech, Tony paces forward and back, rocks to the side, rolls his fists, and does a showy maneuver of pointing up and down while looking in the opposite direction.    
  
He falls to one knee like Al Jolson with a big goofy face, waiting for his applause.  
  
Steve reluctantly gives him four or five slow claps.  Bucky says nothing.  
  
"Damn, you guys are a tough audience," Tony complains, getting up off his knees.    
  
"I want the arm off him, Tony," Steve hisses.    
  
"It's hardwired into his brain, Cap," Tony says, completely serious.  "It doesn't twist off like the safety lid on a bottle of ibuprofen."  
  
Bucky speaks up. "The arm is a weapon, a powerful one.  As long as they're not controlling it, I can still use it." It's not like he doesn't know how to defend himself.  Just, he doesn't want to be a liability.  Or get recaptured and wiped and turned against them.  He tries to control the shudder.  He feels a very strong desire not to be recaptured, strong enough to make him interject his preferences about the arm into Steve and Tony's conversation.  
  
Steve looks surprised but a little relieved. Bucky feels his eyebrows twitch into some kind of shape Steve seems to recognize.  It makes Steve smile, a little smile just for him, and Bucky feels warmer.  At least Tony's findings are mixed and not all bad.    
  
"Well, we've got it locked down tight enough I think we can move this shindig to the Tower."    
  
“The Tower?” Bucky asks.  
  
“Used to be Stark Tower, now Avengers Tower,” Tony said. “Everybody gets their own floor!”  
  
Bucky can’t help but think how many years he’s slept away standing up frozen in a tube.    
  
"Thanks, Tony," Steve says.  “We'd be up the creek without you, I know that."  Bucky doesn’t know about that, but he nods to back Steve up.  
  
"What are friends for," Tony says, looking away.  "Jarvis, transport options?"  
  
"Your jet at Dulles is prepped and waiting," the intercom voice replies.  
  
"Good, thank you," Tony says.  "Which jet?" he asks.  He has more than one?  
  
"The Starkjet 85, with special modifications." Steve nods to himself.  Bucky wonders what they haven’t told him yet.  
  
"Perfect," Tony says.  "We're ready whenever you are."  
  
"Um," says Steve.  He is squinting like he doesn’t want to lie.    
  
"What?" Tony says, razor-sharp gaze trained on Steve.  
  
"I need to make a few calls." Steve glances at Bucky, flashing his tell like a neon sign.    
  
Tony rolls right over it.  "Make em on the way, chop chop," Tony says.    
  
"Natasha has something I need," Steve says.  Bucky can practically hear that he’s not saying something.  
  
Tony's eyebrows shoot up. "Don't let Barton hear you talking like that!"    
  
Steve's eyes roll almost all the way back into his head.  He heaves a sigh.  "Look, I've got to meet her and pick something up, all right? It'll take me an hour or two."  
  
"Meet her on the way. Tell her to come to New York.  It'll be a party.  Pepper loves catering."   Stark is being purposefully difficult, but so is Steve.  
  
"Tony..." Steve begins.  
  
"Nice, Cap, real nice.  I already know Nick Fury's alive.  We need a little more love and affection, here, okay?"  Tony looks hard at Steve.    
  
Steve sets his jaw.  "It wasn't for me to tell."  
  
Wait, Bucky thinks.  I shot him.  Bucky cringes inside as the satisfaction of the kill sweeps through him.  He remembers catching Steve’s shield; recognizing the shield but not remembering the man it stood for; letting Hydra whisk him away.    
  
"If you can't tell me stuff like this, then why am I helping you?" Tony demands.    
  
"I trust you, Tony, but it was Fury's call," Steve says, like iron.   Bucky stays quiet.  Let them fight.  It’s a distraction from his culpability.  
  
Tony sighs.  "Steve, I know you think I'm an asshole. But let me just say? You are also an asshole."  
  
Steve and Tony glare at each other.  Steve backs down.  "I'm sorry, Tony.  I don't always agree with Fury, but it seems like he should make the call on who knows he's alive."  
  
"He's not my best friend or anything.  But we're the Avengers.  It would be nice to know exactly who we do or do not need to avenge.  Anyway, Fury told Maria Hill to tell me, so you're in the clear." Tony’s sharp gaze cuts to Bucky.  Bucky lowers his chin.  Tony blinks.  They have an understanding.  
  
"Thanks, Tony, for everything.  I swear, I owe you big time for all this."   Bucky knows he’s the one who’s really indebted —  to Stark, to Fury, to everyone.    
  
"No, you don't, Steve," Tony says, loudly.  "We owe each other. We’re a team now.  That's how it is."   Is that how is it? Is Bucky really part of this team, when half of them he’s never met, and half he’s tried to kill?  
  
Steve calls Maria on Tony's secure line to set up the meeting with Fury.  Then he calls Natasha, and the Falcon-- Sam Wilson.    
  
"Tell Wilson he should come to the Tower, and bring the wings. Tell him I'll put them back together for him." Tony is generous.  Bucky likes that.  He’s not counting favors. (The Asset is owed nothing.)    
  
"I'll see what his plans are," Steve says noncommittally. Steve doesn’t make decisions on behalf of his friends — not even for Bucky, who’s really out of practice at choosing for himself.  
  
Bucky hates to see Steve go.  Hydra could be out there, waiting just outside the penthouse.  It feels like a safe zone, even though Bucky knows nothing is ever really safe.    
  
Steve goes out.  Bucky shivers.    
  
"No matter what they throw at him, he keeps swinging," Tony says.    
  
Bucky remembers swinging, and swinging, and Steve just lying there, staring up at him and taking it.  He makes no reply.  
  
Tony's face falls when he sees Bucky's eyes.    
  
"It's got to be rough," he says awkwardly, "all the things you did under their control."  
  
"I tried to fight them," Bucky says.  "I fought as hard as I could. But I was their Asset.  They used me as a weapon.”  
  
“Harsh,” Tony says.  
  
Bucky nods, a little sideways, a nod he learned from the Russians.    
  
“I get it, okay?” Tony says, rapid and serious.  “There’s blood on my hands, from the weapons I’ve designed.  I may not have pulled the trigger, but I made it so much easier to pull.  Hell, those helicarriers Steve brought down were floating on Stark repulsor technology.”  
  
Bucky nods.  
  
“We’re all complicit,” Tony says. “Some maybe more so than others.  But you — you weren’t calling the shots.  Just remember, when it starts piling up in your head, you weren’t in charge.  Okay?”  
  
“Sure,” Bucky says.  The kills are mounting in his head, the ones he remembers.  They still feel clean, the haze of Hydra’s controls still giving them that mist of distance.  How long will it last? How long before Bucky starts feeling the weight of what he’s done, before he crumbles underneath it?  
  
How long before a name like Fury’s is added to Bucky kill list, and no one can stand not to hate him?    
  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. The File

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets the file from Natasha.  
> They get on the plane to New York.

While Steve is gone, Bucky obsessively imagines scenarios in which he is attacked, abducted, or killed.    
  
He sees Steve's motorcycle suddenly stopped, Steve hurtling on without it to be shattered against impervious asphalt.  (Actually, Steve's motorcycle was totaled when he was fleeing the Hydra agents who'd attacked him at the Triskelion.)  
  
He sees Tony's little red car (the one he'd loaned Steve), exploding upward and flipping through the air.  
  
He sees Steve dragging himself toward safety, only for a dozen Hydra agents to descend and beat him mercilessly unconscious.    
  
The only reason these are not worst case scenarios is that he himself, the Winter Soldier, is no longer an Asset for them to deploy against their enemy.    
  
Steve returns in just a little over two hours, just as he promised.  As soon as the elevator opens, Steve's  eyes seek Bucky out to assess his wellbeing.  Steve's gaze catches his own as he does the same thing, reassuring himself that Steve is okay. A rush of relief floods through him so strong it's almost debilitating.  It's like he can breathe again, an oxygen high thrilling through his blood.      
  
It's only when Steve is there, that Bucky feels truly alive. And if Bucky's reading Steve right, he feels the exact same way.  
  
"So what did Natasha give you, huh? huh? Spill!" Tony prompts, coming back from the labs on the lower floor.    
  
Steve frowns.  "The Winter Soldier files, but they're confidential."  
  
Tony snorts.  "Confidential.  Didn't we just have this talk?"   Bucky wishes Tony would think for a minute before he makes light of what could be in that file.  
  
Steve elaborates. "You and I and everyone here understands that Bucky was a prisoner of war, that he was coerced, and that he shouldn't be held accountable for things he did while under duress."  
  
"Yes, we all agree about that," Tony says.  Bucky can see why Tony gets on Steve's nerves a little -- it's because Tony is actually so much like Steve -- that stubborn insistence on digging out the truth -- it's so similar between the two of them.    
  
"Someone with the agenda of taking Bucky out of the picture, might be able to use some of this information to get him arrested or worse."  
  
Tony nods, serious for once.  "Give it to Jarvis.  He'll process it, and sift through the information for what we need to know, and we'll destroy the hard copy.  Jarvis is unbreachable."     
  
"Sir, that's a somewhat inelegant word."   Bucky is still amazed that Jarvis is a computer -- Tony explained while Steve was gone, that Jarvis is an AI, a living computational entity, and by no means confined to one computer or location.    
  
"Well, it's what you are, so the English language fails."  
  
"Indeed, sir, I've noticed it often does," Jarvis says drily.     
  
"How does Jarvis process physical documents?" Steve asks.  
  
"Just leaf through the pages and he'll scan them as you go,"  Tony explains.  "Sit there at the reading table. Jarvis has cameras everywhere, but the light is particularly good right there."  
  
Steve carries the fat folder full of papers to the reading table.  "Do you want to look at it first, Bucky?"  
  
Bucky shakes his head, wishing with all his might that no one would look at it at all.    
  
Steve begins steadily turning the pages.  Bucky hates the little sounds of shock and regret Steve makes. He doesn't want to know what Steve is learning that makes him utter those sounds -- but at the same time, he's desperate to know.  
  
"Oh, god. Oh, no. Oh, no."  Steve says, freezing at the table.   Bucky freezes too. Whatever Steve has seen in the file, it doesn't surprise Bucky that it's something purely horrifying.  
  
Tony looks up with a sigh.  "Genius, remember? I may not be Sherlock Freaking Holmes, but I know how to put two and two together."  
  
Bucky looks between Tony and Steve with mounting distress.  What? What did he do?  
  
"You don't remember," Tony says to Bucky.  
  
"Remember what?" Bucky whispers.    
  
"My parents were killed in a car accident in 1991.  Supposedly Dad was taking a turn too fast and a tire blew and the car rolled and exploded, killing them both."  
  
Bucky sees it all play out, a vivid dream.  He feels the trigger under his finger, the ease with which he makes the long, delicate shot.    
  
"The car rolled, but it didn't explode.  That was the clean-up team," Bucky says flatly.    
  
"Did you even know who you were killing?" Tony says, soft, inflectionless.  
  
"No," Bucky says.  "The whole op took, maybe five hours, including transport. I was barely even there." Physically, he'd been in the tree for less than an hour. Mentally, though, he'd been nearly fully conditioned, just as Hydra wanted him to be.    
  
Tony says, "This doesn't change a thing, okay?   I'm fully prepared to blame Hydra, but I'm not blaming you."  
  
"I'm sorry," Bucky says, and he is.  
  
"I just told you -- take it out on Hydra!" Tony barks.  
  
"Okay," Bucky agrees.    
  
Steve wisely keeps his mouth shut and goes on turning pages with grim determination.    
  
Near the end, he huffs again.  Bucky raises his eyes, feeling miserable.  Steve beckons him over.  
  
"Do you remember her, Bucky?"  
  
There's a picture of a beautiful redhead.  Bucky does remember, overlapping memories, some more dreamlike than others.  Several days ago, she'd evaded his targeting; he'd clipped her in the shoulder but hadn't taken her out.  Longer ago, in a desert, at the bottom of a cliff, she'd shielded his target with her own body, and he'd shot through her, just above the hip.  And longer, longer ago, she'd been a brave and clever girl, and he'd liked her, told her things, trained her hard, held her close when the handlers left them alone.    
  
"Natalia," he says, remembering.  "I haven't killed her yet."  
  
"No," Steve says, "you haven't."  
  
"Good," Bucky says.  There's always been a trace -- at least a trace of him alive inside the Asset.  He didn't kill Steve, when Steve lay there and took it, and he didn't kill Natalia, though he didn't mind watching her run.  When so, so many have died, the Asset --Bucky -- somehow let these two live.  
  
Steve finishes showing Jarvis the file.  Tony methodically shreds it, then take it down to his lab to dump it in the incinerator.    
  
The drive to Dulles is uneventful. Sharon drives Steve and Bucky, and Tony drives Bruce, which for some reason makes Steve shake his head in disbelief.  Tony drives  fast, but smooth, always outthinking the cars around him, as though they are sheep and he is a some kind of cheetah maybe.  Sharon keeps pace, sedate and professional.  Sharon bids them goodbye, shaking Steve's hand, and he makes her promise to call him.  
  
The Starkjet 85 is fairly spacious and comfortable.  It even has full beds, and Bruce lies down and closes his eyes.     
  
"Relax, big guy, " Tony says, which Bucky thinks is odd, because Bruce isn't that big.    
  
"I'm relaxed," Bruce murmurs, "just keep the turbulence to a minimum."  
  
Tony and Steve lock eyes for a second.  "Happy's picking us up at LaGuardia, okay?"  
  
"Okay," Steve says, overly casual.  
  
The plane flight is smooth, but Steve and Tony are on edge.  Bucky doesn't get it.  
  
Then Jarvis's voice rings out in the cabin.  "Incoming fire.  Evasive maneuvers.  Special modifications activated."  
  
Tony's flight chair begins to drop down through the floor, revealing pieces of armor that wrap around Tony as he descends.  "Give em hell, Cap!" Tony says, as he disappears.    
  
"Crap," Steve says.  He's already most of the way into a parachute, with a second one for Bucky in his hands.  Bucky slides into the straps automatically, as though he's done it a hundred times -- maybe he has, how would he know?  
  
"Jarvis is flying the plane?" Bucky asks.  
  
"Technically Jarvis is Tony's co-pilot, but yeah," Steve smirks.    
  
"So we sit tight and let the AI do the flying?" Bucky asks.  
  
"Tight as we can," Steve says, and the plane suddenly banks sharp to one side.  Bruce frowns but stays lying down.  
  
"Shouldn't he have a parachute?" Bucky asks.  
  
"Doesn't need one," Steve answers.    
  
Bucky has been suspecting that if the Avengers he's met are a genius in a flying suit, a super soldier, and an ex-Red Room enhanced assassin, there's probably more to Bruce than meets the eye.  
  
The plane banks in the other direction, and Bucky gets a quick glimpse of Tony flying by, redirecting a missile.    
  
He hears a thud from Bruce's quarter, looks over, and Bruce is a giant green monster.  
  
"Bucky, meet the Hulk," Steve says wearily.  "Now we see how he does against the special modifications."  
  



	9. The Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve make it to the Tower.

Bucky and the Hulk make eye contact through the reinforced plexiglass partition currently enclosing the monster.  The monster’s eyes are different from Bruce’s: Bruce is gentle, brilliant, wry, a little playful, but very kind.  The monster is furious.  Any intelligence the Hulk may possess is drowned by the powerful desire to smash.    
  
Bucky knows the horror of having been a weapon.  For Bruce, a horrendous destructive force is hiding inside him, just waiting to burst out.  The monster is the living embodiment of Bruce’s rage — whereas the Asset had no emotions, no will of his own, just a deadly emptiness ready to be wielded.    
  
Incredibly, compared to Bruce, Bucky has it so much better.  
  
Bruce offered friendship to Bucky, when Bucky had been treated no different than a weapon for decades.  Cautiously, Bucky approaches the plexiglass.  
  
“I don’t know about that,”  says Steve.    
  
Bucky says nothing, but lays his metal hand on the clear partition.    
  
The monster frowns, then steps back and throws a punch at the wall of the airplane.  
  
Bucky expects that the Starkjet’s “special modifications” will be strong enough to resistant the mighty blow — but just the opposite is true.    
  
A panel falls away from the side of the plane —wind whips around inside the partition — and Bruce steps up to the gaping hole and jumps out.    
  
“No!” Bucky shouts, clawing at the plexiglass.    
  
“Bucky, stop!” Steve shouts.  “A fall like this won't hurt him!”  
  
Bucky stares in horror at the void where Bruce had been standing a moment before.  Reality falls away like it has no meaning.  Years fall away.  Bucky is clinging to the side of a train, speeding through snowy mountains.  Steve is reaching for him, holding out his hand — and the bar he is clinging to snaps.  Bucky falls, falls, falls, and the fall takes forever, Steve screaming and reaching for him, quickly dwindling to nothing and fading from sight.  Then the horrifying crush of impact, the bone-deep cold— and then the long nightmare began.    
  
“No—“ he screams — it’s no more than a whisper.    
  
“Bucky— “ Steve says.  He doesn’t have to shout.  Servos are already repairing the breach in the hull of the plane.  But Bucky is still frozen in place, replaying the fall — if only — if only— but he doesn’t even know what could possibly have changed.  The fall was some kind of turning point in his destiny.  It was always going to happen — always going to take him away from Steve — always going to betray him to the deadliest of enemies, who would make him into something soulless, a thing without feelings or humanity.    
  
“Bucky — “ Steve repeats, and he’s come a little closer, lightly touching Bucky’s hand with his own, a gentle query.    
  
“Bucky,” Steve says, as though it’s the only word he knows.  But it works — it brings Bucky back to himself.  Bucky remembers another moment now — Steve falling from the Helicarrier, landing in the Potomac — and Bucky himself, jumping after without hesitation, to save Steve when he barely remembered his own name.    
  
Bucky took that risk, and Steve is alive beside him because of it, and because Steve is alive and well, Bucky is free and getting better every day.    
  
“Steve,” Bucky breathes, and turns, and pulls Steve close, and huddles against him.  Steve is big now, strong, but he holds onto Bucky like something precious — even though Bucky is just as full of serum as Steve is, bigger too and harder than he used to be, with a treacherous metal arm grafted onto his scarred and mistreated body.  
  
“Sh, Bucky — I promise, Bruce will be okay,” Steve swears.    
  
“The fall — “ Bucky whispers.  
  
“I know,” Steve says, and doesn’t let go.  Steve holds him close and lets him breathe.  Jarvis pilots them onward toward New York.    
  
The intercom crackles into life.  It’s Tony.  
  
“The Big Guy found them on the ground pretty quickly,” Tony says.  “Hulk smash.”  
  
“How’d he find them so fast?” Steve asks.    
  
“I may have prompted him a little,” Tony says.  “There won’t be any more missiles from that quarter anyway.”  
  
Steve sighs.  “The modifications worked out just like you planned.”  
  
“Good,” Tony says. “I’m sorry Bruce has another ‘smash’ on his conscience—“  
  
“—but they were shooting missiles at us,” Steve finishes.  
  
“Hulk no like, Tony no like much either,” Tony agrees.    
  
Throughout this conversation, Steve hasn’t let go of Bucky, just walking him back to the comfortable flight chairs and sinking down with him, keeping him safe in his arms.    
  
“I’m going to follow Bruce and make sure everything is under control,” Tony says.  
  
“Good,” Steve says.  “And Happy will meet us at LaGuardia.”  
  
“Yes,” Tony says.  “Have fun at the tower.”  
  
The rest of the flight is without incident. Bucky eventually lets go of Steve and lies back in his seat. The flight is not that long and was already half over when the missiles interrupted it.  They are cleared for landing at LaGuardia, though no one on the ground seems to realize that Jarvis is flying the plane.    
  
Happy meets them right on the tarmac and drives across the East River and down Park Avenue to the Tower.  Bucky watches the bridges and the buildings flow past with a weird sense of detachment — some things seem so familiar, but so much is different.    
  
Steve is like that — different, but so very familiar.  Bucky remembers holding him at night, when he was so much smaller — trying to keep him warm, keep him well and safe — but Steve had never wanted to be kept safe.  He was always a fighter; he and Bucky were alike in that.  It’s no surprise to Bucky that Steve is friends with a man in flying armor and a doctor who turns into a giant green monster.  These are the kinds of folks he’d always dreamed Steve belonged with — heroes, men of renown.    
  
They arrive at the Tower where of course, Jarvis is expecting them.    
  
Steve is a little sheepish about the fact that Tony has given him one whole floor of the Tower.  It’s even more opulent than Tony’s penthouse in DC, and Steve’s barely around to live in it.  Few of his things are there, except changes of clothes, but Bucky notices the art on the walls is in line with Steve’s tastes.  He stops staring at a painting, seeing the line and the blocks of color and knowing exactly what made Steve like it, and feeling amazed that with so much missing from his life, he still knows Steve this well.  Deep down inside, Bucky is still the man who knows Steve best.  
  
Jarvis orders in for them, a delicious traditional Italian meal of spaghetti bolognese, salad and garlic bread.    
  
Bucky savors every bite.  It tastes like the most delicious thing he’s ever had.    
  
“If I may, Sergeant Barnes — Doctor Banner suggested that you eat your food slowly, giving yourself plenty of time to readjust to a varied diet.”  
  
“I’m starving here, Jarvis,” Bucky complains, but he follows the suggestion and has no complaints.    
  
Steve pours from a bottle of red wine.  Neither of them feels the alcohol, but the flavor is rich and comforting.    
  
“We never had it so good, did we, Steve?” Bucky asks.    
  
“No,” Steve says. “It’s just another thing I can’t get used to.  We were so damn poor, Bucky.  And Tony is the richest of the rich.  He makes Daddy Warbucks look penny ante.”  
  
“Cars -- houses  — jet planes — skyscrapers —“ Bucky says.  
  
“But the thing is — he really is a genius.  Works all the time, never stops building, improving.  And wait till you meet his gal, Pepper,” Steve says.  
  
“A looker?” Bucky says.  
  
“Sure, but so smart, runs the company while Tony just plays around, making new stuff all the time.  He has so much money, he just gives it away.”  
  
“He wants to make amends,” Bucky says.    
  
“Because Stark Industries worked with the military?”  Steve asks, a little dubious.    
  
“He told me he made the trigger a little easier to pull,” Bucky says.    
  
Pensive, Steve looks down. “I don’t always give Tony enough credit.”  
  
“He’s really not that much of an asshole,” Bucky says.  
  
Steve laughs.  “Yeah, I know, but sometime he’ll just do or say something that irks me somehow.”  
  
“What,” Bucky says, playing shocked.  “That’s not like you at all.”  
  
Steve blushes and laughs again, and Bucky knows he’s never seen anyone, woman or man, look more beautiful than Steve does right at the moment, and he’ll be damned if he lets even one more second go by without telling Steve so.  Hell, Hydra, whatever could blow up all around him — it has before — and this time, he wants what he wants and damn tomorrow.  
  
“Steve,” Bucky says.    
  
“Yeah?” Steve says.  He looks up, dark lashes around gorgeous blue eyes — full red lips — and such a strong, handsome face.    
  
“You sure are a knockout,” Bucky breathes, staring and staring, refusing to look away.  
  
Steve blushes harder.  “You trying to sweet talk me?”  
  
“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Is it working?”  
  
The blue eyes darken, the red lips part. “Yeah, I think it is.”  
  
Bucky leans forward and Steve meets him halfway.  Their lips meet so softly, getting reacquainted.  So much time has passed — for Bucky, years lost to the cryo tube and the missions and Hydra’s awful schemes — for Steve, decades lost to the ice of the Arctic Ocean.  Steve has two years out to understand just how much he’s lost, while Bucky’s had only a handful of days to recover the basics of who he is.  
  
Still, with so much gone awry, the pull between them is just as strong as it ever was.  Bucky has the feeling he would always end up in Steve’s arms, whether they were friends running the streets of Brooklyn, or whether they’d met in the army, or maybe even if they hadn’t met until the heat of battle, pitted against each in the deadliest dance.  Bucky remembers a flash of fighting Steve in the street, the ferocious joy that built inside him as Steve matched him blow for blow.  It had never happened before— he’d known even then, in the clear void of the wipe — no one had matched him like this fair-haired warrior who wielded a shield with such grace, such elegance.  Bucky had wanted to fight and fight, but then Steve had said his name and the fight had shivered to a halt.  Clean-up arrived and Bucky disappeared, gnawed inside by worry about the man he’d fought, the man he’d somehow remembered.    
  
Now, Steve is here and real and they are alone — an opulent tower all around them — a powerful AI  keeping watch over them — friends planning on how best to help them.  Nothing could be better — could it?  
  
Bucky savors Steve’s kisses.  He tastes like red wine.  
  
“Steve, take me to bed,” Bucky says — and then he’s the one blushing.    
  
Steve just smiles, a wicked delight shining deep in his eyes.  His lips, moist from kissing, now look even better, sinful and tempting.  
  
“Bucky — I’m so glad, you know? So damned glad.  You’re alive,” Steve says.  HIs voice is a comfort, rumbling into Bucky where he is pressed close.  
  
“I am,” Bucky says. “And so are you —  so let’s get busy.”  
  
He tries a smile and at last it feels easy.  The smile spreads across his face to mirror the one Steve is wearing.  Their kiss-warmed lips go together perfectly.    
  
They fall into Steve’s bed, shedding clothes, pressing up together, and everything is perfect.  Steve’s strength is everything Bucky has craved for so long, without even knowing what he’s been yearning for.  He burrows into Steve and it feels like home.  They press against each other, just as they’ve always done —like all the years they’ve lost dissipate like a mist, leaving only the truth of Steve and Bucky. Nothing can keep them apart.    
  
“Is this okay?” Steve says, as his hand slips lower.  
  
“Yes,” Bucky says.  All that’s been done to him, no one has ever cared if he says yes or no — but he’ll never say no to Steve, he’ll never need to.    
  
It feels so good it washes everything out of Bucky’s head — not the terrible emptiness of the wipe — but a blissful beauty, a miraculous unity like a cloudless sky or an endless ocean — clear and perfect and right.  Bucky lets Steve touch him, can’t believe it can feel so wonderful, remembers that for them, it has always been this way.     
  
“Steve,” Bucky shouts, letting go.    
  
Steve holds him even tighter, Bucky’s bliss carrying Steve along with him.  
  
They come down slowly, panting. Steve pulls away a little, and Bucky clutches on, kissing him, snuggling into the mess they’ve made.    
  
“Let me go, Buck, I’ll get a cloth to clean us up,” Steve says, laughing.  
  
“Don’t ever let me go, Steve,” Bucky says, but smiles as he says it, releasing Steve’s hand, knowing Steve will be right there.  
  
“I never will,” Steve swears, and Bucky knows he can count on it.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the final chapter! 
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who left kudos and comments. It really means so much to me. Please let me know if you have any ideas about more you'd like to see. 
> 
> In Tarot, the Tower is not so auspicious but it's kind of like in the movie: you have to tear things down to build things anew. In the bad old days, Steve and Bucky might have sacrificed each other to propriety, but nothing can tear them apart now. I'm sure more bad stuff will happen to them, but this is a Happy ending, as promised!

**Author's Note:**

> According to movie canon, Bucky starts remembering and trying to defy Hydra very quickly after a mission -- like within 36 hours. 
> 
> Also, I don't think they let him sleep, EVER. They either wipe him, put him in Cryo, or drill him with directives. 
> 
> I guess in the Red Room he may have had a little more autonomy, but that was a prior regime. He has traded hands I guess from Hydra to the Soviets and back to Hydra. 
> 
> I also have the head canon that the total time he hasn't been in cryo is probably less than two years. So he is still the exact same age as Steve. care to discuss? find me on LJ! :D


End file.
